


vita brevis, ars longa (the aphorisms remix)

by moiraes



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Magic Revealed, Non Consensual, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moiraes/pseuds/moiraes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not a suspicious man, but neither is he ignorant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vita brevis, ars longa (the aphorisms remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_claudia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Oath and Covenant](https://archiveofourown.org/works/475109) by [i_claudia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia). 



> The title is part of the Hippocrates quote, "Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile," roughly translated in English to, "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult."
> 
> Thank you so, so much to my beta for doing *such* a quick job on this, to the remix mods for holding my hand through the issues I had, and to i_claudia for writing the creepy, fascinating, and unforgettable Gaius piece that I couldn't ignore.

He needs Gaius.

Uther tells himself this, over and over, as he watches Gaius leave the throne room with a predatory gleam in his bright eyes. He needs Gaius, so he will look the other way at his old friend’s... predilections. But his kingdom also has needs, and between his son and his physician, there is no choice.

When he returns to his chambers, he pulls a small, colourless vial out of the collection of potions he has set aside. Yes, he thinks, it’s far past time for this lesson to be learnt. He motions to the servant standing obediently in the corner.

“Send for my son,” he orders.

The man bows and leaves the room, quiet and unobtrusive as a shadow, and Uther stares at the clear liquid in his hands. He trusts Gaius, as much as he trusts anyone, but in this matter, Uther will not leave his son’s life to trust.

\---

Every time Merlin closes his eyes, he sees the look that had been on Arthur’s face as Merlin disposed of the bandits that had surprised them in the night: betrayal, anger, and acute comprehension. The slow trip back to Camelot had been excruciating, but the days that follow are somehow worse. Even in his first fortnight of service, Merlin had never truly felt removed from Arthur. Their interaction had started with irritated explanation and slowly transformed to mildly amused insults and sharp banter, until finally, they were something like friends. But now, for the first time, he feels the divide between them.

Merlin had spent the first two days in a nervous haze, bag packed and ears always listening for the sounds of guards. He hadn’t said a word to Gaius, too afraid of what his guardian would say or do in fear of Merlin’s life. By the third day, he was tired, but now, ten days after he had been forced to reveal his magic, he feels weariness down to the bone, and he finally cracks.

“Are we going to do this for the rest of our lives?” he says, standing up from where he had been kneeling to scrub the fireplace. The soot that’s covering his entire body surely isn’t helping the image of desperation he can feel himself emitting, but Arthur looks too surprised to comment on the state of his clothes.

“Do what?” Arthur says after several long moments, and for an instant, Merlin can’t feel anything but relief at the sound of his voice. He hasn’t heard a word from his prince since his muttered “Thought I knew you,” on the journey back, and the silence has been eating at him.

“This,” Merlin says, using his arms to gesture to the entire room. “You refusing to speak to or listen to me, me asking for forgiveness? Us acting like a proper master and servant? Arthur. _Please._ Yell at me or demand an explanation or _something_ , just please stop treating me like I’m invisible.”

Arthur laughs, a strangled, horrid noise, and finally tears his gaze away from Merlin to stare fixedly at the papers on his desk. “I don’t want to yell, and I hardly need an explanation. It’s fairly obvious why you didn’t choose to tell me.”

Ignoring the strange mix of guilt and fury he feels at that, Merlin brushes his hands off as best he can and walks closer to Arthur’s desk. “Then why haven’t you said a word to me in ten days?”

“What was I supposed to say?” Arthur says, quiet resignation and frustration lacing his words. “I’ve – you’re not –” He swears under his breath and then says, with obvious discomfort, “Everything has changed, and I still don’t know how to move forward with that.”

“Nothing has to change between us,” Merlin says. His stomach is a mess, anger and worry and fear jumbling in a nauseous tangle. He doesn’t know how to show Arthur that he’s still the same person he’s known for a year. He’s still Merlin, Arthur’s hapless manservant, his friend, only now a bit more truthful.

Arthur grimaces. “I wanted it to.”

The confession is barely more than a whisper, and even with the embarrassment in Arthur’s voice, it still takes a few moments for the meaning to set in, and it crashes into Merlin like an avalanche. Was – _oh_. He tries not to let the surprise show on his face, but Arthur’s eyes harden anyway. Desperate not to lose this progress, Merlin reaches for him, ignoring Arthur’s flinch. “You never said,” he says, feeling dizzy with potential, guilt and hope battling.

“How could I?” Arthur says, standing up, and he plants his arms on the desk in a defensive position. “I’m not supposed to be _friends_ with you, let alone—” He cuts himself off with a huff, shoulders tensing as he looks down. “I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“Why?”

“You’re my servant,” Arthur says, still refusing to meet Merlin’s eyes.

Merlin suddenly feels like screaming at Arthur, but somehow he feels that wouldn’t go over well. “You’re a complete arsehole.”

Finally, Arthur looks directly at him, fury and embarrassment emanating from his stance. “What are—”

“I didn’t sleep for days, too worried that any moment guards would be knocking down my door to take me to be burnt on the stake or beheaded or whatever punishment befits a sorcerer who works for the prince.”

Hurt joins the indignation in Arthur’s expression. “You really thought I would have you executed?”

“What was I supposed to think?” Merlin cries, throwing his hands in the air. “You refused to speak to me. You wouldn’t even look at me. How was I supposed to know what you thought? I thought you hated me.”

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ if I needed time to digest the fact that my manservant could take out two dozen bandits with just a _look!_ It changes things, Merlin, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

“And suddenly I’m not just your servant,” Merlin says. “Is that it? Did you seriously refuse to talk me for days because now things _could_ change?”

“Don’t think that ju—”

Merlin rolls his eyes, leans forward and grabs Arthur’s shirt, and kisses him. It’s awkward and forced for a moment until Arthur grabs Merlin’s arms. Whether it’s to push him away or pull him in for a better angle, Merlin’s not sure, but suddenly it feels – _oh._ The world falls into sharp focus as Merlin runs his tongue along the seam of Arthur’s lips, and for a few wondrous minutes it’s just this: their racing heartbeats, mingled breaths, and hot mouths.

Arthur draws back, shaking, and he seems torn between joy and outrage. “Don’t – just – you –” He stops, looking mortified, and turns, running a hand through his hair. “We’re okay, Merlin,” he says, eyes closed-off again, and Merlin abruptly feels as though everything has turned sideways. Surely Arthur didn’t – “You can go.”

Distressfully aware that one wrong move could shatter the shards of whatever was left between them, Merlin moves around the desk and tries to reach to touch Arthur’s face, needing to make him _see_.

Arthur bats his hand away and looks at Merlin, his eyes dark and glittering. “Merlin, you’re _dismissed_.”

Merlin clenches his fists. “No.” He ignores the danger in Arthur’s expression and continues. “And you can stop feeling sorry for yourself. Did you maybe stop to think that maybe _I_ wanted things between us to change, too?”

Arthur advances so quickly that Merlin reflexively tries to take a step back and nearly falls backwards over the desk. One of Arthur’s arms reaches around to cradle the small of Merlin’s back to balance him, and when Merlin opens his mouth – to say what, he’s not entirely positive – Arthur’s lips cover his.

The kiss isn’t gentle like the first. It’s punishing and bruising and full of heat. Merlin winces as Arthur’s teeth scrape his bottom lip and pushes back, their tongues warring and mouths and hands recklessly seeking dominance, but when they finally pull apart, they’re both smiling.

\---

Arthur is not by nature a suspicious man. He supposes if he were, the hundred unanswered questions and clues and what ifs and maybes would have been put together long before he watched a gang of bandits crumple with a flash of Merlin’s eyes. He generally chooses to see the best in people, something his father has chided him for many times.

He’s not a suspicious man, but neither is he ignorant.

Gaius has kept Merlin under lock and key for a week, and something feels _wrong_. He’s never known Gaius to lie – except, he thinks, perhaps in regards to Merlin’s magic. Merlin hasn’t outright admitted that Gaius knows about his magic, but his name has slipped in more than one time in their rare discussions about it – the occasional “Gaius says” or “maybe Gaius knows” – and Arthur hasn’t had the courage to approach the sore subject of who Merlin told, who Merlin trusted.

But something isn’t right.

The last time he’d seen Merlin, he’d been sliding out of Arthur’s bed and into his clothes, ignoring Arthur’s half-hearted, sleepy attempts to get him to stay. He’d left with a soft smile and a teasing “Sleep. I’ll be sure to wake you as obnoxiously as possible in the morning.” But it was Gaius that showed up that morning, explaining Merlin’s absence as illness. And despite the fact that Merlin had seemed perfectly healthy moaning and murmuring endearments underneath Arthur the night before, Arthur accepted it with few reservations.

But it’s been a week and Gaius still offers nothing but more excuses.

He knows that intruding upon the physician’s quarters, while not strictly verboten, is dishonourable at best, but the ever-growing knot of apprehension in his chest refuses to let him do anything else. He just has to see Merlin. He just needs to make sure he’s okay, to quell this feeling of wrongness, and then he’ll leave.

He waits until Gaius has left for his midday errands before he uses his set of keys on the locked doors to Gaius’ quarters. Everything in the main chambers looks normal, but it still doesn’t ease the dread he feels as he crosses the floor to unlock the door to Merlin’s smaller room.

The door opens with a quiet creak to reveal a pale, sleeping Merlin. Nothing jumps out at Arthur when he does a quick scan of the room, but when he leans in to brush the hair away from Merlin’s closed eyes, his eyes lock on a bottle on the bedside table.

It looks innocuous enough, label-less and colourless, but Arthur still feels his stomach drop. He uncorks the bottle and raises it to his nostrils, briefly flaring them to inhale. Scentless. His dread immediately ratchets up several notches. All but one of the odourless, colourless potions Arthur knows are poisons, and the one non-poisonous one is almost more worrying. He feels as though he’s made of lead when he dips the end of his finger into the potion and tests the bead of liquid with his tongue.

The taste is all too familiar. Arthur can’t breathe. Is this why Uther stressed the importance of knowing this particular potion? He recalls the urgency in his father’s voice as he outlined just what this potion facilitated and resists the sudden urge to vomit at the images that rise, unbidden, to his mind’s eye.

Gaius. _Merlin_. He can’t breathe.

He stumbles out to the main chambers, desperately needing to get away from Merlin’s sleeping – _drugged_ – form. He breathes in deeply, opting to focus on the swell of rage instead of the queasiness. He rolls his shoulders and looks around the room with a cold, clinical eye, wondering at things he wishes he didn’t know. An idea forms, and he’s accepting, if not content, in the knowledge of what he has to do.

He goes back to the bed and picks up Merlin’s limp form. The walk to his chambers is excruciating, his anger only building with every step. By the time he places Merlin’s all-too-pliable body on his own bed, Arthur is trembling with rage, but his head is clear. He locks the door to his chambers, unsheathes his sword, and heads down to the prison cells.

He knows exactly what he must do.


End file.
